00:00Scientists at Cambridge University say Ebola could one day be treated with a new type of
00:06vaccine designed by artificial intelligence.
00:09In a world first, they say they've used AI to develop a single jab that could protect
00:15people from thousands of viruses.
00:18Joining me now is Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia.
00:23Paul, this sounds like a major breakthrough.
00:26How significant is this?
00:28Well, I think the first thing is that we've got to be a little bit cautious.
00:33What they've done is developed what's called a pan-Sarcovi vaccine.
00:37So that is basically just against one subtype of coronaviruses, the SARS-1 and the SARS-2.
00:49It is not, this vaccine that they developed isn't something that will also work against
00:54Ebola and dengue and other viruses.
00:57So it's a much more restricted vaccine than the headlines would suggest.
01:05But we know that it has been used by, it's been developed by AI, hasn't it?
01:10That's been used to develop this vaccine, which does seem to be the stuff of science fiction, doesn't it?
01:15Explain a little bit more about what this AI has actually done to create this vaccine.
01:21Well, it's not clear from the published evidence exactly how the AI worked, but I will say we are using
01:28increasingly using AI in medicine and in medical research and in ways that perhaps speed up what might take considerably
01:40longer if it was done by more traditional methods.
01:44So I think what they will have done is they will have looked at a range of different coronaviruses and
01:53looked for places that were that were similar between different different strains, different species of the coronavirus vaccine virus.
02:03And then targeted those for the effectiveness for the effect for the effect for the vaccine.
02:09And they do seem to have managed that, at least for the coronaviruses.
02:14but we're still a long way from actually producing a vaccine that will have value in society it's got
02:21to be tested the the human studies that they've done so far they pointed out that the the strength
02:28of the antibodies that they generated wasn't that great compared with um what we're seeing
02:35more widely with with coronaviruses so a very important development but one that i think
02:42still needs a lot more work before we have something that can actually make a difference
02:46in the real world but there is still substantial potential there
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